4 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Michael Elling (@Infostack)

Phil, A better timeline is to go back to 1839 or the start of the modern digital information revolution. 2-way voice broke the 1.5-way store and forward texting (err, telegraph) monopoly in the late 1800s. Information networks were still nascent and understanding of technology and its impacts hadn’t resulted in the formulation and understand of moore’s (processing) and metcalfe’s (network effect) laws when we entered into the farcical and fraudulent Kingsbury Commitment in 1913 and made matters worse in 1934. But we understand those principles today and have ample evidence of their impact since we 1983 when we introduced competition… Read more »

Michael Graves
10 years ago

If you like this sort of thing then you will likely enjoy “The Master Switch” by Tim Wu. It’s a fascinating read telling of the parallels between the evolution various industries from the advent of electricity, through to telephony, broadcasting and the internet.

http://www.mgraves.org/2011/11/recommended-reading-the-master-switch-by-tim-wu/

Michael

Michael Elling (@Infostack)
Reply to  Michael Graves

Wu’s book and others fail to capture the true genesis of competition in the 1980s and 1990s. It’s all about interconnection, equal or open access, or net neutrality variously in layers 1-3 and across different boundary points. For instance, he talks about the use of wireless by AT&T in 1916, but fails to relate that to the 50 mile exclusion zone in the Kingsbury Commitment just 3 years prior. Clearly they anticipated use of wireless for long-distance transport (which actually took more than 50 years to develop commercially.) This 50 mile zone is the reason Bell Monopolies, in the mid-1980s,… Read more »

txpatriot
txpatriot
10 years ago
Reply to  Michael Graves

Michael Graves: Read some of the 1-2-3 star reviews on Amazon of Wu’s book and you might reconsider your opinion of it. I know the negative reviews are in the minority, but given my own experience and background in telephony, I tend to agree more with the negative reviews.

Search This Site:

Contributions:

Recent Comments:

Your Account:

Stop the Cap!